Simon Carter | The Open University (original) (raw)
Papers by Simon Carter
Sociology Compass, 2018
Walking and cycling have been transformed by digital technologies, which range from mapping apps ... more Walking and cycling have been transformed by digital technologies, which range from mapping apps for wayfinding, through ‘wearables’ which monitor activity, to social media apps for comparing activity within social groups. Some technologies are explicitly orientated to health projects, others are not, yet all have potentially profound effects on bodies, health‐orientated identities, and understandings of health.This paper uses the concept of biomedicalisation to explore emerging literature on the intersection of digital technologies with everyday mobility, focusing on walking and cycling. Beyond simply ‘medicalising’ mobility (by bringing it into the realm of public health), digital technologies contribute to various transformations of health: encouraging some health practices, inhibiting others; creating or excluding individual and collective health‐related identities; and reconfiguring health and well‐being. There is research evidence on the contingent and multiple relationships b...
Understanding Digital Societies provides a framework for understanding our changing, technologica... more Understanding Digital Societies provides a framework for understanding our changing, technologically shaped society and how sociology can help us make sense of it. You will be introduced to core sociological ideas and texts along with exciting global examples that shed light on how we can use sociology to understand the world around us. This innovative, new textbook: Provides unique insights into using theory to help explain the prevalence of digital objects in everyday interactions. Explores crucial relationships between humans, machines and emerging AI technologies. Discusses thought-provoking contemporary issues such as the uses and abuses of technologies in local and global communities. Understanding Digital Societies is a must-read for undergraduate students of digital sociology, sociology of media, digital media and society, and other related fields
Health Policy, 2005
The tuberculosis (TB) notification in Osaka City has been persistently high compared with other u... more The tuberculosis (TB) notification in Osaka City has been persistently high compared with other urban areas in Japan. Although the TB notification in Greater London has kept much lower level compared with that in Osaka City, it has been also persistently high compared with other urban areas in the UK. Nonetheless, the contexts of the two cities relating TB control programme as well as the epidemiological situation greatly vary; there must be some lessons to be learnt from each other to improve each TB control programme to tackle against TB more effectively. Comparing the epidemiological situation of TB in both cities, it is obvious that Osaka City suffers TB more than Greater London in terms of the TB notification rate. Concerning the context of the TB control programme, Osaka City has centralised approach with strong local government commitment; Greater London, on the other hand, has an approach that is greatly fragmented but coordinated through voluntary TB Networks. This paper aims to draw some constructive and practical lessons from Greater London TB control management for further improvement of Osaka City TB control management through literature review and interview to health professionals.
TB epidemiology in Greater London shows distinct features in the extent of TB in new entrants and TB co-infected with HIV in comparison with those in Osaka City. TB epidemiology in Osaka City is to a great extent specifically related to homeless people whereas in Greater London, this relationship occurs to a lesser extent. Both areas have relatively high TB-notification rates compared with national figures, and they have “TB hot spots” where remarkably high TB-notification rates exist.
TB control in Greater London is characterised with decentralised and devolved services to local government health authorities supplemented with co-ordinating bodies across sectors as well as across Greater London. Sector-wide TB Network as well as London TB Group (LTBG) and London TB Nurses Network are major key functioning bodies to involve relevant professionals as wide as possible. The specialist TB nurses play key roles for TB case management across Greater London, while in Osaka City, TB control is characterised with strong leadership and commitment of Osaka City Government for the TB control programme. The Osaka City Public Health Centre (PHC) takes initiatives to expand “Cohort Analysis and Case Management Conferences” at each of the 24 Ward Health and Welfare Centres as well as “DOTS Conferences” at hospitals for improvement of case management by physicians and nurses at hospitals as well as by the health centre staff. Public health nurses (PHNs) play very important roles for TB case management as frontline in Osaka City.
Comparing the TB control in both cities, the following suggested recommendations are made to both cities for further improvement. Four suggested recommendations to Osaka City are: more resource re-allocation to community-based TB care than to hospital-based TB care should be done; Cohort Analysis and Case Management Conferences should be strengthened through involving more multi-disciplinary sectors; specialist TB PHN at each of the 24 Ward Health and Welfare Centres should be assigned in order to concentrate more on TB control activities; and accessibility to laboratory data such as drug susceptibility test for health centre staff should be improved. Two suggested recommendations to Greater London are: screening for TB high-risk group like homeless people should be strengthened, and regular sector-wide multi-disciplinary case conferences for proper case management should be strengthened.
Sociology Compass, 2018
Walking and cycling have been transformed by digital technologies, which range from mapping apps ... more Walking and cycling have been transformed by digital technologies, which range from mapping apps for wayfinding, through ‘wearables’ which monitor activity, to social media apps for comparing activity within social groups. Some technologies are explicitly orientated to health projects, others are not, yet all have potentially profound effects on bodies, health-orientated identities, and understandings of health. This paper uses the concept of biomedicalisation to explore emerging literature on the intersection of digital technologies with everyday mobility, focusing on walking and cycling. Beyond simply ‘medicalising’ mobility (by bringing it into the realm of public health), digital technologies contribute to various transformations of health: encouraging some health practices, inhibiting others; creating or excluding individual and collective health-related identities; and reconfiguring health and well-being. There is research evidence on the contingent and multiple relationships between digital technologies and social practices, with specific themes including quantification; the role of apps in framing walking as extraordinary, cycling as competitive; enabling users to perform as healthy, neoliberal citizens; and digital careers. There has been less attention on how social divisions are reproduced or disrupted by the mediation of mobility through digital technologies. Further research should consider the impact of digital technologies on political economies of health.
Critical Public Health, 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a global threat, but one primarily managed by nation-states. Acros... more The COVID-19 pandemic has been a global threat, but one primarily managed by nation-states. Across the world, national public health responses have provided a grim comparative natural experiment in infectious disease control policy, as governments have implemented a range of border controls, masking mandates, contact tracing, economic support and communication strategies. It may be premature to assess the effectiveness of these strategies for protecting health and wellbeing. However, what is clear from the papers gathered in this Special Section, is that future evaluation will have to take into account the wider political contexts of public health action in determining which count as policy successes and which count as policy failures. The content of policy matters; but so does the context in which it is implemented. In a companion Special Section, Marelli et al. (2022) introduce three papers on solidarity in pandemic times, flagging how issues such as trust in government shape responses to contact tracing, for instance. What is also abundantly clear is that evaluation will need to focus not just on COVID-19 infection and mortality outcomes, but also on broader impacts on health, social justice, and equity. The burden of pandemic effects has not been borne equally. This is partly because the resources to cope with illness, economic disruption and stress are unequally distributed. The most marginalised-such as indigenous populations (Singh et al., 2022), migrants, those living in poverty-are often most at risk from both infectious disease and the consequences of pandemic control measures. But beyond these issues of unequal capacity to withstand shocks, policy responses to COVID-19 across the world have actively exacerbated social divisions and undermined social justice, as studies in this Special Section illustrate. Kajeepeta et al. (2022), for instance, document how criminalisation, as a public health strategy in New York, USA, has reinscribed spatial and racialized discrimation; likely to have not only exacerbated infection spread disproportionately in Black communities, but also to have had wide ranging collatorial unequal impacts on health. Kapilashrami et al. (2022) document the ethnic inequalities in exposure to risk among health workers in the UK's NHS, in which those from minority communities are more likely to be exposed to infection as front line workers. Gaspar et al. (2022) note that the histories of public health show that conflation of infection and moral risk have long-held risks for sexual minorities. Evaluating the wider impacts of infectious disease mitigation strategies will not be straightforward. The lack of good quality evaluations of public health measures has been widely noted, most recently in the context of a systematic review that found only one RCT of mask-wearing (Glasziou et al., 2021). More trial evidence is unlikely to help much: complex packages of interventions are likely to be variable in their effects, interacting with contexts in dynamic ways over time, as behavioural responses change in response to both pandemic waves and public policies. Assessing success or failure in the absence of counterfactuals is challenging. However, initial assessments certainly suggest that the UK has furnished a raft of example policy measures that appear to have been associated with increases, rather than decreases, in morbidity and mortality. For example, the so-called 'Eat Out to Help Out' initiative provided subsidies for restaurants to encourage people to dine out. This, it was thought, would increase economic activity but was associated with a subsequent spike in COVID-19 infections and
International Journal of Epidemiology, 2009
Cost of Living Blog, 2016
Image: If UKIP were pigeons, Clacton-on-Sea #Banksy, from Duncan Hill's Flickr PhotoStream The ye... more Image: If UKIP were pigeons, Clacton-on-Sea #Banksy, from Duncan Hill's Flickr PhotoStream The year 2016 has been extraordinarily bleak. In June, following a nasty campaign, peppered with a barely concealed racist venom, Britain narrowly voted to leave the EU. Then in November, after an even nastier, more racist and surreal campaign, a deranged kleptocrat demagogue won the US presidency (while also losing the popular vote by a significant margin). Both events will have dramatic and long-lasting implications for health and healthcare. Leaving the EU will: damage shared research and clinical trial networks; make it significantly harder to recruit health staff at all levels; harm the UK's place in a web of pan-European public health institutions that have taken over 40 years to develop; and increase supply costs to the NHS due to a weakening pound. It's also plain that the Brexiteers cannot be trusted with the NHS. But perhaps the greatest threat to the NHS is economic. Leaving the EU will require that the UK borrow an extra £58 billion over the next five years. This is on top of falling tax revenues that could cost the government £66 billion. Under these circumstances, the continued funding of many public services, including the NHS, becomes unsustainable.
Cost of Living Blog, 2017
Cost of Living Blog, 2014
Medical Humanities, 2016
There has been considerable interest in images of medicine in popular science fiction and in repr... more There has been considerable interest in images of medicine in popular science fiction and in representations of doctors in television fiction. Surprisingly little attention has been paid to doctors administering space medicine in science fiction. This article redresses this gap. We analyse the evolving figure of 'the doctor' in different popular science fiction television series. Building upon debates within Medical Sociology, Cultural Studies and Media Studies we argue that the figure of 'the doctor' is discursively deployed to act as the moral compass at the centre of the programme narrative. Our analysis highlights that the qualities, norms and ethics represented by doctors in space (ships) are intertwined with issues of gender equality, speciesism and posthuman ethics. We explore the signifying practices and political articulations that are played out through these cultural imaginaries. For example, the ways in which 'the simple country doctor' is deployed to help establish hegemonic formations concerning potentially destabilising technoscientific futures involving alternative sexualities, or military dystopia. Doctors mostly function to provide the ethical point of narrative stability within a world in flux, referencing a nostalgia for the traditional, attentive, humanistic family physician. The science fiction doctor facilitates the personalisation of technological change and thus becomes a useful conduit through which societal fears and anxieties concerning medicine, bioethics and morality in a 'post 9/11' world can be expressed and explored.
Hinchliffe, S. Allen, J., Bingham, N., Carter, S.,(2016) Pathological Lives: Disease, Space and Biopolitics, Wiley/Royal Geographical Society Book Series: London, 2016
Pandemics, epidemics and food borne diseases are a major global challenge. Focusing on the food a... more Pandemics, epidemics and food borne diseases are a major global challenge. Focusing on the food and farming sector, and mobilising social theory as well as empirical enquiry, Pathological Lives investigates current approaches to biosecurity and ask how pathological lives can be successfully 'regulated' without making life more dangerous as a result. Uses empirical and social theoretical resources developed in the course of a 40-month research project entitled 'Biosecurity borderlands'. Focuses on the food and farming sector, where the generation and subsequent transmission of disease has the ability to reach pandemic proportions. Demonstrates the importance of a geographical and spatial analysis, drawing together social, material and biological approaches, as well as national and international examples. The book makes three main conceptual contributions, reconceptualising disease as situated matters, the spatial or topological analysis of situations and a reformulation of biopolitics. Uniquely brings together conceptual development with empirically and politically informed work on infectious and zoonotic disease, to produce a timely and important contribution to both social science and to policy debate.
ABSTRACT In our research on the interface between animal health and public health, we have noted ... more ABSTRACT In our research on the interface between animal health and public health, we have noted that lay people often strategically invoke notions of ignorance in positioning their own knowledge in relation to scientific, public health and media understandings of zoonotic disease risks. The period in which we conducted ten focus groups with UK citizens (2011-2012) was marked by a number of zoonotic disease events – past, present and future. These included: a recent swine flu epidemic, which prompted a large scale public health campaign; on-going concerns about future outbreaks of avian flu; a recent outbreak of E.coli amongst children visiting a petting zoo; and a number of incidents of foodborne diseases, the most notable being the E.coli contamination of beanshoots in Germany. While referring to these events, respondents marshalled distinct discourses of ignorance and non-knowledge as an active choice and strategic resource, rather than a mere lack of understanding arising from passivity. In this paper we explore several forms of such expressions of ignorance, including: the intentional bracketing out of unknowns (e.g. as an ‘ignorance is bliss’ strategy for avoiding anxiety); awareness of lack of information that was considered unimportant (e.g. as a strategy for distributing attention to other concerns); and dynamic mindfulness that further knowledge may be dangerous (e.g. both because ‘knowledge’ may make daily decision making impossible and as a strategy for living with the perceived inevitability of new, emergent diseases).
Gorsky, M and Berridge, V. (ed.), Environment Health and History, London: Palgrave, 2011
This chapter explores how, during the 1920s and 1930s, a variety of forces came into play to weav... more This chapter explores how, during the 1920s and 1930s, a variety of forces came into play to weave sunlight, as a giver of health, into the fabric of social environments. The use of sunlight, both natural and artificial, was already well-established as a therapy that had been prevalent in Europe since the late nineteenth century.1 The growth of sunlight therapy, however, expanded greatly in the early part of the twentieth century, with heliotherapy (natural sunlight) being used to treat tuberculosis and actinotherapy (via sunlamps) deployed to combat rickets.2 These therapeutic applications, applied in sanatoria and clinics, helped establish an association between sunlight and health. The growth in the use of such sunlight therapies was partially based on the idea of ‘nature’ being curative of the diseased body.3 However, this idea of nature as curative and enhancing health was also being found in non-clinical developments in this period and these helped to produce equivalence between health and the desire to introduce sunlight into the environments used for living and working. It is these developments that this chapter will consider.
ABSTRACT About the book: This textbook, one of three written for the new Open University course M... more ABSTRACT About the book: This textbook, one of three written for the new Open University course Making Social Worlds, provides the first introductory sociological analysis of security in the 21st century. Students will find one of the central issues of modern times, security, analyzed in all its different aspects, from global geo-politics to intimate personal relations. The themes of matter, mediation and the individual are drawn across the whole book. "Security" draws on five authors who each produce a sociological analysis of the subject in their areas of expertise, to provide a complex yet accessible exploration of the role security plays in all our lives. Sophie Watson explores security and the city, drawing on examples such as the role of SUVs and of surveillance. Matt McDonald explores how security is made in international relations, touching on climate change and asylum seekers.Elizabeth Silva takes security into the home, examining how daily routines make ordered lives. Simon Carter and George Davey-Smith look at risks and fears in the area of health and security, taking in examples such as heart disease and the metered dose inhaler used by asthma sufferers.
Science As Culture, Mar 1, 2001
Address correspondence to: Simon Carter, Health Services Research Unit, Department of Public Heal... more Address correspondence to: Simon Carter, Health Services Research Unit, Department of Public Health & Policy, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, UK, E-mail: Simon.Carter@lshtm.ac.uk; and Mike Michael, Department of Sociology, ...
Times Higher Education, Jun 21, 2001
The Harold Shipman inquiry and other high-profile cases have brought proposals for changes to mak... more The Harold Shipman inquiry and other high-profile cases have brought proposals for changes to make medical professionals more accountable to the government and the public. Such cases have called into question the degree to which healthcare professionals can be trusted.
Most would agree that extending corporate governance to include the quality of clinical care and seeking more public involvement in the National Health Service are crucial steps in re-establishing trust in the delivery of healthcare. But should we not expect similar responsibilities from those performing health research?
Health researchers can make dramatic impacts. The recent debate about the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine began with a scientific paper that suggested an association between the vaccine and autism. This resulted in anxiety among parents and a consequent fall in immunisation. Since then, public debate has generated more uncertainty about the vaccine's safety.
Such research can lead to confusion and anxiety and guilt. The situation is exacerbated by the way that scientists may be pushed to exaggerate their work's implications because their careers are partly dependent on the impact of their publications. Many scientists view the media as part of the research process: as an ally to be enrolled in the never-ending struggle to secure future funding and institutional recognition.
It is time researchers accepted that the boundaries between scientific and social and political spheres are collapsing - scientists have increasing responsibilities that go well beyond their disciplinary boundaries. Each time these responsibilities are avoided, as in the Alder Hey Children's Hospital body-parts scandal, public support for research is further undermined.
If people grow suspicious of health research, they will increasingly withhold their support and decline participation in studies that could benefit all. There are enough impediments to conducting worthwhile and much-needed research without scientists themselves adding difficulties.
Sociology Compass, 2018
Walking and cycling have been transformed by digital technologies, which range from mapping apps ... more Walking and cycling have been transformed by digital technologies, which range from mapping apps for wayfinding, through ‘wearables’ which monitor activity, to social media apps for comparing activity within social groups. Some technologies are explicitly orientated to health projects, others are not, yet all have potentially profound effects on bodies, health‐orientated identities, and understandings of health.This paper uses the concept of biomedicalisation to explore emerging literature on the intersection of digital technologies with everyday mobility, focusing on walking and cycling. Beyond simply ‘medicalising’ mobility (by bringing it into the realm of public health), digital technologies contribute to various transformations of health: encouraging some health practices, inhibiting others; creating or excluding individual and collective health‐related identities; and reconfiguring health and well‐being. There is research evidence on the contingent and multiple relationships b...
Understanding Digital Societies provides a framework for understanding our changing, technologica... more Understanding Digital Societies provides a framework for understanding our changing, technologically shaped society and how sociology can help us make sense of it. You will be introduced to core sociological ideas and texts along with exciting global examples that shed light on how we can use sociology to understand the world around us. This innovative, new textbook: Provides unique insights into using theory to help explain the prevalence of digital objects in everyday interactions. Explores crucial relationships between humans, machines and emerging AI technologies. Discusses thought-provoking contemporary issues such as the uses and abuses of technologies in local and global communities. Understanding Digital Societies is a must-read for undergraduate students of digital sociology, sociology of media, digital media and society, and other related fields
Health Policy, 2005
The tuberculosis (TB) notification in Osaka City has been persistently high compared with other u... more The tuberculosis (TB) notification in Osaka City has been persistently high compared with other urban areas in Japan. Although the TB notification in Greater London has kept much lower level compared with that in Osaka City, it has been also persistently high compared with other urban areas in the UK. Nonetheless, the contexts of the two cities relating TB control programme as well as the epidemiological situation greatly vary; there must be some lessons to be learnt from each other to improve each TB control programme to tackle against TB more effectively. Comparing the epidemiological situation of TB in both cities, it is obvious that Osaka City suffers TB more than Greater London in terms of the TB notification rate. Concerning the context of the TB control programme, Osaka City has centralised approach with strong local government commitment; Greater London, on the other hand, has an approach that is greatly fragmented but coordinated through voluntary TB Networks. This paper aims to draw some constructive and practical lessons from Greater London TB control management for further improvement of Osaka City TB control management through literature review and interview to health professionals.
TB epidemiology in Greater London shows distinct features in the extent of TB in new entrants and TB co-infected with HIV in comparison with those in Osaka City. TB epidemiology in Osaka City is to a great extent specifically related to homeless people whereas in Greater London, this relationship occurs to a lesser extent. Both areas have relatively high TB-notification rates compared with national figures, and they have “TB hot spots” where remarkably high TB-notification rates exist.
TB control in Greater London is characterised with decentralised and devolved services to local government health authorities supplemented with co-ordinating bodies across sectors as well as across Greater London. Sector-wide TB Network as well as London TB Group (LTBG) and London TB Nurses Network are major key functioning bodies to involve relevant professionals as wide as possible. The specialist TB nurses play key roles for TB case management across Greater London, while in Osaka City, TB control is characterised with strong leadership and commitment of Osaka City Government for the TB control programme. The Osaka City Public Health Centre (PHC) takes initiatives to expand “Cohort Analysis and Case Management Conferences” at each of the 24 Ward Health and Welfare Centres as well as “DOTS Conferences” at hospitals for improvement of case management by physicians and nurses at hospitals as well as by the health centre staff. Public health nurses (PHNs) play very important roles for TB case management as frontline in Osaka City.
Comparing the TB control in both cities, the following suggested recommendations are made to both cities for further improvement. Four suggested recommendations to Osaka City are: more resource re-allocation to community-based TB care than to hospital-based TB care should be done; Cohort Analysis and Case Management Conferences should be strengthened through involving more multi-disciplinary sectors; specialist TB PHN at each of the 24 Ward Health and Welfare Centres should be assigned in order to concentrate more on TB control activities; and accessibility to laboratory data such as drug susceptibility test for health centre staff should be improved. Two suggested recommendations to Greater London are: screening for TB high-risk group like homeless people should be strengthened, and regular sector-wide multi-disciplinary case conferences for proper case management should be strengthened.
Sociology Compass, 2018
Walking and cycling have been transformed by digital technologies, which range from mapping apps ... more Walking and cycling have been transformed by digital technologies, which range from mapping apps for wayfinding, through ‘wearables’ which monitor activity, to social media apps for comparing activity within social groups. Some technologies are explicitly orientated to health projects, others are not, yet all have potentially profound effects on bodies, health-orientated identities, and understandings of health. This paper uses the concept of biomedicalisation to explore emerging literature on the intersection of digital technologies with everyday mobility, focusing on walking and cycling. Beyond simply ‘medicalising’ mobility (by bringing it into the realm of public health), digital technologies contribute to various transformations of health: encouraging some health practices, inhibiting others; creating or excluding individual and collective health-related identities; and reconfiguring health and well-being. There is research evidence on the contingent and multiple relationships between digital technologies and social practices, with specific themes including quantification; the role of apps in framing walking as extraordinary, cycling as competitive; enabling users to perform as healthy, neoliberal citizens; and digital careers. There has been less attention on how social divisions are reproduced or disrupted by the mediation of mobility through digital technologies. Further research should consider the impact of digital technologies on political economies of health.
Critical Public Health, 2022
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a global threat, but one primarily managed by nation-states. Acros... more The COVID-19 pandemic has been a global threat, but one primarily managed by nation-states. Across the world, national public health responses have provided a grim comparative natural experiment in infectious disease control policy, as governments have implemented a range of border controls, masking mandates, contact tracing, economic support and communication strategies. It may be premature to assess the effectiveness of these strategies for protecting health and wellbeing. However, what is clear from the papers gathered in this Special Section, is that future evaluation will have to take into account the wider political contexts of public health action in determining which count as policy successes and which count as policy failures. The content of policy matters; but so does the context in which it is implemented. In a companion Special Section, Marelli et al. (2022) introduce three papers on solidarity in pandemic times, flagging how issues such as trust in government shape responses to contact tracing, for instance. What is also abundantly clear is that evaluation will need to focus not just on COVID-19 infection and mortality outcomes, but also on broader impacts on health, social justice, and equity. The burden of pandemic effects has not been borne equally. This is partly because the resources to cope with illness, economic disruption and stress are unequally distributed. The most marginalised-such as indigenous populations (Singh et al., 2022), migrants, those living in poverty-are often most at risk from both infectious disease and the consequences of pandemic control measures. But beyond these issues of unequal capacity to withstand shocks, policy responses to COVID-19 across the world have actively exacerbated social divisions and undermined social justice, as studies in this Special Section illustrate. Kajeepeta et al. (2022), for instance, document how criminalisation, as a public health strategy in New York, USA, has reinscribed spatial and racialized discrimation; likely to have not only exacerbated infection spread disproportionately in Black communities, but also to have had wide ranging collatorial unequal impacts on health. Kapilashrami et al. (2022) document the ethnic inequalities in exposure to risk among health workers in the UK's NHS, in which those from minority communities are more likely to be exposed to infection as front line workers. Gaspar et al. (2022) note that the histories of public health show that conflation of infection and moral risk have long-held risks for sexual minorities. Evaluating the wider impacts of infectious disease mitigation strategies will not be straightforward. The lack of good quality evaluations of public health measures has been widely noted, most recently in the context of a systematic review that found only one RCT of mask-wearing (Glasziou et al., 2021). More trial evidence is unlikely to help much: complex packages of interventions are likely to be variable in their effects, interacting with contexts in dynamic ways over time, as behavioural responses change in response to both pandemic waves and public policies. Assessing success or failure in the absence of counterfactuals is challenging. However, initial assessments certainly suggest that the UK has furnished a raft of example policy measures that appear to have been associated with increases, rather than decreases, in morbidity and mortality. For example, the so-called 'Eat Out to Help Out' initiative provided subsidies for restaurants to encourage people to dine out. This, it was thought, would increase economic activity but was associated with a subsequent spike in COVID-19 infections and
International Journal of Epidemiology, 2009
Cost of Living Blog, 2016
Image: If UKIP were pigeons, Clacton-on-Sea #Banksy, from Duncan Hill's Flickr PhotoStream The ye... more Image: If UKIP were pigeons, Clacton-on-Sea #Banksy, from Duncan Hill's Flickr PhotoStream The year 2016 has been extraordinarily bleak. In June, following a nasty campaign, peppered with a barely concealed racist venom, Britain narrowly voted to leave the EU. Then in November, after an even nastier, more racist and surreal campaign, a deranged kleptocrat demagogue won the US presidency (while also losing the popular vote by a significant margin). Both events will have dramatic and long-lasting implications for health and healthcare. Leaving the EU will: damage shared research and clinical trial networks; make it significantly harder to recruit health staff at all levels; harm the UK's place in a web of pan-European public health institutions that have taken over 40 years to develop; and increase supply costs to the NHS due to a weakening pound. It's also plain that the Brexiteers cannot be trusted with the NHS. But perhaps the greatest threat to the NHS is economic. Leaving the EU will require that the UK borrow an extra £58 billion over the next five years. This is on top of falling tax revenues that could cost the government £66 billion. Under these circumstances, the continued funding of many public services, including the NHS, becomes unsustainable.
Cost of Living Blog, 2017
Cost of Living Blog, 2014
Medical Humanities, 2016
There has been considerable interest in images of medicine in popular science fiction and in repr... more There has been considerable interest in images of medicine in popular science fiction and in representations of doctors in television fiction. Surprisingly little attention has been paid to doctors administering space medicine in science fiction. This article redresses this gap. We analyse the evolving figure of 'the doctor' in different popular science fiction television series. Building upon debates within Medical Sociology, Cultural Studies and Media Studies we argue that the figure of 'the doctor' is discursively deployed to act as the moral compass at the centre of the programme narrative. Our analysis highlights that the qualities, norms and ethics represented by doctors in space (ships) are intertwined with issues of gender equality, speciesism and posthuman ethics. We explore the signifying practices and political articulations that are played out through these cultural imaginaries. For example, the ways in which 'the simple country doctor' is deployed to help establish hegemonic formations concerning potentially destabilising technoscientific futures involving alternative sexualities, or military dystopia. Doctors mostly function to provide the ethical point of narrative stability within a world in flux, referencing a nostalgia for the traditional, attentive, humanistic family physician. The science fiction doctor facilitates the personalisation of technological change and thus becomes a useful conduit through which societal fears and anxieties concerning medicine, bioethics and morality in a 'post 9/11' world can be expressed and explored.
Hinchliffe, S. Allen, J., Bingham, N., Carter, S.,(2016) Pathological Lives: Disease, Space and Biopolitics, Wiley/Royal Geographical Society Book Series: London, 2016
Pandemics, epidemics and food borne diseases are a major global challenge. Focusing on the food a... more Pandemics, epidemics and food borne diseases are a major global challenge. Focusing on the food and farming sector, and mobilising social theory as well as empirical enquiry, Pathological Lives investigates current approaches to biosecurity and ask how pathological lives can be successfully 'regulated' without making life more dangerous as a result. Uses empirical and social theoretical resources developed in the course of a 40-month research project entitled 'Biosecurity borderlands'. Focuses on the food and farming sector, where the generation and subsequent transmission of disease has the ability to reach pandemic proportions. Demonstrates the importance of a geographical and spatial analysis, drawing together social, material and biological approaches, as well as national and international examples. The book makes three main conceptual contributions, reconceptualising disease as situated matters, the spatial or topological analysis of situations and a reformulation of biopolitics. Uniquely brings together conceptual development with empirically and politically informed work on infectious and zoonotic disease, to produce a timely and important contribution to both social science and to policy debate.
ABSTRACT In our research on the interface between animal health and public health, we have noted ... more ABSTRACT In our research on the interface between animal health and public health, we have noted that lay people often strategically invoke notions of ignorance in positioning their own knowledge in relation to scientific, public health and media understandings of zoonotic disease risks. The period in which we conducted ten focus groups with UK citizens (2011-2012) was marked by a number of zoonotic disease events – past, present and future. These included: a recent swine flu epidemic, which prompted a large scale public health campaign; on-going concerns about future outbreaks of avian flu; a recent outbreak of E.coli amongst children visiting a petting zoo; and a number of incidents of foodborne diseases, the most notable being the E.coli contamination of beanshoots in Germany. While referring to these events, respondents marshalled distinct discourses of ignorance and non-knowledge as an active choice and strategic resource, rather than a mere lack of understanding arising from passivity. In this paper we explore several forms of such expressions of ignorance, including: the intentional bracketing out of unknowns (e.g. as an ‘ignorance is bliss’ strategy for avoiding anxiety); awareness of lack of information that was considered unimportant (e.g. as a strategy for distributing attention to other concerns); and dynamic mindfulness that further knowledge may be dangerous (e.g. both because ‘knowledge’ may make daily decision making impossible and as a strategy for living with the perceived inevitability of new, emergent diseases).
Gorsky, M and Berridge, V. (ed.), Environment Health and History, London: Palgrave, 2011
This chapter explores how, during the 1920s and 1930s, a variety of forces came into play to weav... more This chapter explores how, during the 1920s and 1930s, a variety of forces came into play to weave sunlight, as a giver of health, into the fabric of social environments. The use of sunlight, both natural and artificial, was already well-established as a therapy that had been prevalent in Europe since the late nineteenth century.1 The growth of sunlight therapy, however, expanded greatly in the early part of the twentieth century, with heliotherapy (natural sunlight) being used to treat tuberculosis and actinotherapy (via sunlamps) deployed to combat rickets.2 These therapeutic applications, applied in sanatoria and clinics, helped establish an association between sunlight and health. The growth in the use of such sunlight therapies was partially based on the idea of ‘nature’ being curative of the diseased body.3 However, this idea of nature as curative and enhancing health was also being found in non-clinical developments in this period and these helped to produce equivalence between health and the desire to introduce sunlight into the environments used for living and working. It is these developments that this chapter will consider.
ABSTRACT About the book: This textbook, one of three written for the new Open University course M... more ABSTRACT About the book: This textbook, one of three written for the new Open University course Making Social Worlds, provides the first introductory sociological analysis of security in the 21st century. Students will find one of the central issues of modern times, security, analyzed in all its different aspects, from global geo-politics to intimate personal relations. The themes of matter, mediation and the individual are drawn across the whole book. "Security" draws on five authors who each produce a sociological analysis of the subject in their areas of expertise, to provide a complex yet accessible exploration of the role security plays in all our lives. Sophie Watson explores security and the city, drawing on examples such as the role of SUVs and of surveillance. Matt McDonald explores how security is made in international relations, touching on climate change and asylum seekers.Elizabeth Silva takes security into the home, examining how daily routines make ordered lives. Simon Carter and George Davey-Smith look at risks and fears in the area of health and security, taking in examples such as heart disease and the metered dose inhaler used by asthma sufferers.
Science As Culture, Mar 1, 2001
Address correspondence to: Simon Carter, Health Services Research Unit, Department of Public Heal... more Address correspondence to: Simon Carter, Health Services Research Unit, Department of Public Health & Policy, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, UK, E-mail: Simon.Carter@lshtm.ac.uk; and Mike Michael, Department of Sociology, ...
Times Higher Education, Jun 21, 2001
The Harold Shipman inquiry and other high-profile cases have brought proposals for changes to mak... more The Harold Shipman inquiry and other high-profile cases have brought proposals for changes to make medical professionals more accountable to the government and the public. Such cases have called into question the degree to which healthcare professionals can be trusted.
Most would agree that extending corporate governance to include the quality of clinical care and seeking more public involvement in the National Health Service are crucial steps in re-establishing trust in the delivery of healthcare. But should we not expect similar responsibilities from those performing health research?
Health researchers can make dramatic impacts. The recent debate about the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine began with a scientific paper that suggested an association between the vaccine and autism. This resulted in anxiety among parents and a consequent fall in immunisation. Since then, public debate has generated more uncertainty about the vaccine's safety.
Such research can lead to confusion and anxiety and guilt. The situation is exacerbated by the way that scientists may be pushed to exaggerate their work's implications because their careers are partly dependent on the impact of their publications. Many scientists view the media as part of the research process: as an ally to be enrolled in the never-ending struggle to secure future funding and institutional recognition.
It is time researchers accepted that the boundaries between scientific and social and political spheres are collapsing - scientists have increasing responsibilities that go well beyond their disciplinary boundaries. Each time these responsibilities are avoided, as in the Alder Hey Children's Hospital body-parts scandal, public support for research is further undermined.
If people grow suspicious of health research, they will increasingly withhold their support and decline participation in studies that could benefit all. There are enough impediments to conducting worthwhile and much-needed research without scientists themselves adding difficulties.